Yusuf Kanlı

A disaster for one might be a fortune of some other. What is bad, terrible or deplorable for some, might be good, welcome development and even something to applaud for some others. It all depends on how one perceives what is good and bad for him, where he stands, from which angle he sees a development and of course what’s in it for him in that particular happening. A villager who begs for some rain for years might comfortably complain about his shoes being dirtied because of rainwater months after he moves to the city. However, has anything changed? Are we growing crops that need less rain? No, apart from the villager moving to the city there has been no change and if we do not have sufficient rain we will face the draught problem again. But our villager is more concerned today about the dirt on his shoe and cares less of the water needed by the crops in the fields of the village that he left behind.

For a business owner, on the other hand, electricity cut during working hours generally means loss of precious working hours. But nowadays, with businesses working at around 10 to 15 percent of capacity, who would care if there is an electricity cut?

A 21 percent reduction in electricity consumption in Turkey has become a very serious concern for the economists and politicians who are concerned about the situation of the economy and the working population. Such a decrease in electricity consumption demonstrates a serious slowdown of the Turkish economy. We are very much concerned with it. It is a very bad sign of what might be waiting for this country tomorrow or the day after. However, were we not discussing just a while ago how we can reduce our energy consumption, how we can encourage our people to engage more in energy conservation? Why? Besides environmentalist concerns, there were fears that due to neglect in energy investments soon we might face a serious energy shortage. Now, possible energy shortage fears were temporarily postponed and instead we are worried with the sharp decrease in energy consumption. Pure relativity!

One day the sultan of a country calls his clown and says "I am bored! Tell me a joke so bad that your apology must be even worse. If you fail, I will take off your head!" The clown thinks for a while. As the sultan starts climbing the stairs to his throne, puffing and yelling at some other servants around, the clown pinches the back of His Highness. The sultan bursts in anger. "How dare you!" he shouts at the clown. The clown answers; "Sorry your Highness, I mistook you for the Queen Mother." Thus, he saves his head and gets a sack of gold coins in appreciation.

Nowadays, while the nation is very much concerned with the plight of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, still very angry with the disproportionate use of force by Israel against Hamas terrorism directed at the Jewish territory from the besieged Palestinian territory, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and some other folks in the political Islam spectrum of Turkish politics are mad at Israel. Why? They believe they were mocked and deceived by outgoing Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert. The contest between the two Islamist parties of Turkey to cash in on the Gaza sympathy of conservative voters at the forthcoming March 29 mayoral elections has even reached the level of Erdoğan yelling, "You know well how to kill" at Israeli President Shimon Peres and walk out a joint panel at Davos. While including this writer there were no doubts in many people that the entire Davos episode was a plot, but overdone by Erdoğan, now we read in the media that through diplomatic channels messages were being sent to Israel that they should have no worries of the future of Turkish-Israeli relations and that once the March polls were left behind everything will return to normal. Is such an attitude much different than the story of the clown and the sultan?

Do you think we will be getting a sack of gold coins in appreciation of the pinch we took at Israel’s back?

Is the Democratic Society Party, or the DTP, a political party? Is it a terrorist organization? Is it a political contractor of a terrorist gang? Is it just a collaborator of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK? What is the DTP? Ahmet Türk, the co-chairman of the DTP, declared in front of cameras the other day that "We will continue our actions." What actions? Burning down tires in the streets, rooting out pavements and using the pavement stones in attacking police, torching cars, attacking election offices of other parties, hurling Molotov cocktails on police, civilians, cars and shops...

Which one of these "actions" are political attitudes that a legal political party can be involved in? Are those actions political party activities, or examples of how the terrorist gang with the help of a "legal" party is exploiting kids and getting them involved in terrorist actions?

Such actions in certain quarters of Istanbul and in southeastern cities have indeed become some sort of a routine. Over the past year hundreds of kids were used by the gang and the DTP as human shields in such violent demonstrations.

The PKK has even started referring to those kids with the "our young generals" jargon used for the kids participating in the Palestinian intifadah. That mentality was no different than the mentality of the AKP government that ordered kids at high schools to observe a minute of silence in memory of the Palestinians killed in Israel’s Gaza Strip aggression. This cruel-some exploitation of kids must be stopped.

The DTP and the PKK might not be bothered with what might happen to those kids used as human shields in violent demonstrations. However, reports from the prisons and remarks of the families of kids imprisoned clearly demonstrate that after spending several months behind bars these kids turn into radicals and potential members of the separatist gang.

But, at least the Turkish state must realize this growing threat and take measures accordingly.

The DTP, on the other hand, appears provoking a closure decision from the Constitutional Court. Why? Is it scared of a potential fiasco in the local polls? Apparently so. The DTP and the PKK tried to convert local elections into some sort of a referendum in 12 southeastern provinces. They might lose polls in at least 4 to 5 of those provinces. Is it why they are trying to obstruct polls?

A police report
According to a police report prepared on the basis of latest intelligence gathered, incidents in some big western cities and in almost all southeastern cities to "mark" the 10th anniversary of the capture of terrorist chieftain Abdullah Öcalan were indeed rehearsal of some bigger events on March 8, International Women’s Day, and March 21, Nevroz day.

Reportedly groups of PKK terrorists have infiltrated into Turkey from northern Iraq and have started preparations to shed blood on those two days with the aim and intention of disrupting the March 29 local elections. The gang reportedly was particularly after staging some deadly attacks in Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir and other western provinces in hopes of inciting a Turkish-Kurdish confrontation. The aim? To disrupt local polls...

Goodbye Gazanfer Özcan

Gazanfer Özcan, one of the giants of Turkish theater, passed away Monday evening. He was 78 years young. Since 1952, he acted in over 20 films, staged hundreds of plays at his Gönül Ülkü-Gazanfer Özcan Theater. For most of the Turks living outside Istanbul, however, he was known for the roles he played in the Kuruntu Ailesi (Anxious Family), Başımıza Gelenler (What happened to us), Baba (Father) and since 2004, the Avrupa Yakası (The European Flank) TV series.

Özcan has closed the curtain of life but as his actor and actress friends commented, only his mortal body passed away, he will always live in the hearts as a great master of theater. Goodbye Gazanfer Özcan until we meet again.

It might be too early to start discussing a prospective constitutional amendment or the probability of writing a new constitution after the local polls, but the genie was let out of the bottle by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with a declaration that in April his party will initiate such a move.

Last time the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, attempted to write a "civilian constitution" it hired some constitutional law professors, asked them to write a new text and attempted to impose that text as the new constitution. That effort had landed the country into a crisis atmosphere and the AKP was compelled to give it up. Instead, the AKP, with the support of the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, wanted to legalize headscarves at universities. That effort, however, produced some very serious consequences.

After that constitutional amendment debacle, the ruling AKP, suffered not only the AKP bid to legitimize religious headgear, or turban, at universities faltered but the AKP itself had found itself defending, in front of the Constitutional Court against a demand by the chief prosecutor of the Court of Appeals, for its closure on grounds that it became a focus of anti-secular and fundamentalist activities. Though the court concluded the case against the AKP in a record short period, for more than five months the country lived the trauma of that case. At the time, six members of the court voted for the closure of the AKP, but at least seven votes were required in the 11-member high court to decide for the closure of a party, thanks to the need of a qualified vote. Yet, while it narrowly survived, 10 of the 11 members of the high court ruled that the AKP was a focus of anti-secular activities and must be punished with a fine.

The 2008 constitutional amendment debacle and the subsequent closure case trauma were in a way a product of the "majority complex" the AKP developed after it received an overwhelming 47 percent electoral support in the July 22, 2007 elections. The AKP believed that since it received the vote of one in every two Turks, since it won almost two-thirds majority of parliamentary seats, it had the mandate to rule the country in any way it considered appropriate. It just mixed up majoritarianism and pluralism. It just forgot that democracy is not the absolute rule of the majority.

Now, after Erdoğan declared that his party will re-initiate the collapsed "civilian constitution" effort of the post-July 22 period, prominent AKP members have started stressing that even though the AKP did not need the opposition’s contributions to make a constitutional amendment, the ruling party will seek cooperation of the opposition and indeed they wanted to set up a "reconciliation commission" in Parliament participated by all parliamentary groups and which will produce a "joint proposal" for the amendment of the constitution. This, of course, is a very promising start compared to the 2007.

New effort will mean seeking new crisis

Even in Turkey, someone lighting himself on fire is not routine news. 45-year-old Abdülkadir Uçar parked his minibus in front of the Tekirdağ Governor’s Office. Locked himself in the car. Poured gasoline on his body. Put himself on fire. There were lots of plainclothes as well as uniformed police on Hükümet Avenue as the Tekirdağ Police Department had deployed some additional policemen in the area because of a planned visit to the Governor’s Office by State Minister Murat Başesgioğlu. Policemen intervened, broke the windows of the minibus, put out the fire and saved the man. His face, hair, hands and parts of his body were seriously burnt. "Was it worth putting yourself on fire?" asked the policemen to the 45-year-old man. "We don’t have a crisis, do we?" was his answer.

The 45-year-old man was a small merchant. Because of the "tangentially passing crisis" his business collapsed. He had debts to pay, needed money to finance health expenses of his 10-year-old son, Ahmet, who was undergoing medical treatment at a hospital because of leukemia. He sold his house, his car. Tried to finance hospital expenses, but the money in his hands could not suffice for the lengthy leukemia treatment. He needed more money. He applied to local officials, tried to get credit from banks, he was told to apply for a "green card." NoÉ It was not the work-permit green card the United States distributes every year to winners of a lottery. It was the green card the Turkish state has been issuing for poor people with which they receive free health services. But, the "social state" which has been distributing over the past many months millions of Turkish Liras worth of election alms in the form of coal, foodstuffs as well as mobile telephones and household appliances did not believe Uçar; he was denied a green card. The worst, his 10-year-old son lost the fight and passed away. "My son died yesterday. He was not given proper treatment because I did not have money any longer É He was buried yesterday," he cried. "We were social state, ha? When does a social state help its citizens? Where was that social state when my son was in need of that social state?"

Committing a suicidal act is not of course something a man with mental integrity can undertake. However, this "tangentially" passing crisis has apparently reached such a dimension that it started disrupting psychology of our people. On third pages of newspapers we have started reading every day stories of fathers killing their kids, wives and committing crime? Why? The story is almost all the same. The father is either unemployed or his small shop collapsed because of the stagnation in the market, debts accumulated and a feeling of "there is no way out from this mess" has developed.

Yesterday, new unemployment statistics were released. Accordingly, in the November 2008 period, unemployment in Turkey increased by 2.2 percentage points compared to the same period in 2007 and reached a record 12.3 percent level. Furthermore, if urban unemployment is taken separately from rural unemployment, the unemployment rate reaches 15.4 percent. According to statistical data, some 17.5 of the unemployed, that is 524,000 of the overall 2.995 million unemployed, have lost their jobs recently.

The actual situation is even worst

These statistics, unfortunately, don’t provide realistic up-to-date information about the Turkish economy. The situation is far more serious because we all know that both the number of businesses collapsed or scaled down their operations as well as the number of workers dismissed from work places, put on unpaid leave or asked to work reduced hours skyrocketed over the past few months.

Erdoğan declared that he would prefer to make a deal with the IMF before the March 29 local polls. If the 2007 overall budgetary allocation of the Tunceli province was 5 million liras, but just over the past four months 7 million liras worth of election alms were distributed in Tunceli by the state agencies, can we say the government is willing to engage in a new deal with the IMF, receive some cheap credits but agree as well to some austerity measures while the country is heading to local polls?Let’s wait for a deal (perhaps with even more difficult terms) with the IMF after the polls.

Pollsters underlined that effect on the voting pattern of Turks of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan yelling at Israel’s President Shimon Peres as "You know well how to kill" and subsequently walking out a joint panel with the Israeli leader in what was explained later as a protest to the disproportionate speaking time allocation as well as impolite behavior of the moderator will be marginal. Directors of opinion poll companies, appearing on various channels over the weekend, defended that if polls were to be held immediately after the Davos incident, perhaps carried by their emotions, Turks might have given some additional 8 to 10 points of support to the ruling AKP candidates. But elections will be held on March 29 and by that date such emotions will mostly die out and Turks are expected to primarily vote with economic considerations. There might be a slight contribution of the Davos incident on the AKP performance in the polls, but that contribution will not be higher than one or two percentage points, they said.

Pollsters, unfortunately, were missing one important point. It was these outbursts on which Erdoğan has built his entire political campaign. He knew well in December 1997 in Siirt when he recited the poem, "Mosques are our barracks, domes our helmets, minarets our bayonets, believers our soldiers. This holy army guards my religion. Almighty, our journey is our destiny, the end is martyrdom," which also included lines that he had modified himself, from Ziya Gökalp that it could land him in jail on grounds of disseminating hatred and exploitation of religion. He still did it, landed himself in jail and eventually emerged from jail as the leader of the "reformist" wing of the political Islam in the country.

Compromising is not in the dictionary of Erdoğan. Rather than compromise, he has been preferring head on collision, climaxing tension and then surfing to his target on that tension wave. Political polarization and thus dividing the country between secularists (mostly supporting the main opposition CHP) and devoted Muslim Turks (mostly supporting his AKP) has been the cornerstone of Erdoğan’s political strategy, which coupled with the high demand for economic stability, has earned two straight terms of almost absolute AKP majority in Parliament. The skill in deception helped the AKP and Erdoğan in this long period as well.

Deception: Name of the game!

Though he considered democracy nothing more than a coach on which he would travel on until the destination he wanted but would abandon at that point, he pretended as if he was the best-ever democrat in the country. Though religious feelings and the generosity of the Turks were nothing further than a fertile ground to exploit, to collect through the Light House charity fund millions of euros worth of donations (in Germany, Austria, Netherlands as well as in Turkey), to fund an Islamist TV channel, finance political Islam and raise a green capital, but they are the most devoted and true Muslims.

Though he considered the EU-membership bid of the country as a vital tool to attain his Islamist designs, in order to obtain external legitimacy in the absence of a domestic one, for a long period he pretended as if he was devoted to the EU goal of the country. But he was such a democrat that he could not accept any criticism in the media, brought court cases against cartoonists criticizing him, and still has been appealing for a boycott of the media outlets that refuse to enter into an allegiance with him and his AKP. Only this week Erdoğan appealed to his supporters twice and urged them not to let into their houses those newspapers not supportive of his government. Still, both in Turkey and in some European capitals there are people considering him a "conservative democrat" politician.

For Erdoğan, barking in Jerusalem of a dog clad in uniform Ğ though the Israeli military immediately disavowed the accusations and the insulting barking Ğ was yet another opportunity to exploit, to revive the "Davos emotions," which if maintained to run high, he hopes will help his party garner some additional support in the polls. Otherwise, if tension is permitted to subside and the electorate is allowed to ponder accuracy of rampant corruption claims, can the AKP maintain a 47 percent electoral support?

Erdoğan loves surfing on tension waves.

On a cold Ankara day last year police ambushed the Keçiören Land Registry Office. Was it because of the cold, or were they scared of the lengthy judicial case awaiting them. The personnel escorted out by the police were shivering. They were unable to speak, most were so ashamed with what they were accused of they were unable to raise their heads and look into the cameras of an army of journalists waiting in front of the building.

The operation was carried out after a lengthy investigation. Hidden cameras were installed in the office. Personnel, including the director, were recorded accepting bribes in exchange for speeding up registration work. The suspects were charged with establishing a gang and forcing citizens to pay bribes in exchange for getting service or speeding up the service they requested from the land registry office. The charge against the suspects was verified by testimonies from some citizens as well as with the pictures recorded by hidden cameras.

Months passed by and the case was forgotten. The nation was busy with some other important developments. In the mean time first the Land Registry Department’s director general, then the minister in charge, delivered statements to the media differentiating between receiving a bribe and receiving a tip. For both the director general and the minister the accused personnel did not receive bribes, but they were offered tips by the citizens who appreciated their outstanding performance. Thus, since accepting a tip is not a crime under the Penal Code, there was no crime indeed.

Many people thought the director general and the minister must have been joking and trying to evade questions on the "documented bribery charge" against the Keçiören Land Registry director and the majority of his personnel. This week, however, the nation learned that they were not joking indeed but just preparing the public for the release of those alleged to be involved in the massive bribery scandal.

An Ankara court, very much like the minister and the director general, ruled that there was a difference between accepting a bribe and accepting a tip. While one was a crime, the other was not. The land registry officials were offered tips. Thus, there was no crime. The accused director and his personnel were acquitted.

Tip box at state

The case is now with the Court of Appeals. Will it uphold the verdict of the lower court or ask for a retrial, we cannot say for now. However, if the Court of Appeals somehow agree with this insane mentality and upholds the verdict, then we can say for sure that the acute bribery illness that this country has been suffering for a very long time, will reach a new dimension, and in a way, will be legalized. Offering a bribe to any official at any government office and later defending that criminal act as a non-criminal, "I just gave him some money as tip," excuse will save both the one who offered the bribe and the official who received it. This, perhaps, will be the greatest service of this period to the "advancement" of the, "My civil servants know well their business" understanding that we inherited from late Turgut Özal.

Those who could remember those years would recall with "gratitude" how everything was so perfectly fixed and contractors bidding for highway, bridge, school construction or whatever else state tender knew very clearly what was the rate they were expected to contribute to the tip box, or pocket... That practice was long over and the fixed rates were all forgotten. Why waste time with bargaining over what the tip rate should be?

If you want to get the value added tax lifted on gem trade, offer some 50 percent of the business to the son and daughter-in-law of a prime minister. If you want to expand a hut on the Bosphorus from 45 square meters to 200 square meters and convert it into a luxurious patisserie, give a small percentage of the shares to the mayor of Istanbul or to his family. Such practice is of course far more ethical than buying 5 million Turkish Liras-worth of household appliances from one company without a tender and then distributing them free of charge to woo voters ahead of local polls. Let’s legalize bribery and pardon getting tips. If that happens, officials and mayors will get their tips, people will do their businesses and no one will land in court. It would be like "Alice in wonderland!"

Australia is continuing an "arsonist hunt" after worst forest fires of the recent history of the largest island of the world. Since the fires are still continuing north of Melbourne while elsewhere they were just mostly taken under control, the exact toll is not yet clear. Putting the fires out completely, cooling off and establishing some sort of normalcy will take several more weeks according to Australian officials quoted by various agencies which reported as well that so far over 200 people perished in the fires, while some 80 people are still missing, at least 50 of them presumed dead. Unfortunately, besides the human loss, countless animals were killed in the disaster, which hit farming and forest regions to the north and east of the Victoria state capital of Melbourne. Agencies reported that experts said half of the forest fires were the work of arsonists, who are seldom caught because their crime is so easy to commit and comes without an obvious motive to help police in their detective work. The rest of the fires are caused by carelessly discarded cigarette butts, lightning strikes and accidental ignitions from vehicles and electrical equipment.

Arsonists putting up forests on fire is not of course a problem peculiar to Australia. Turkey is losing some of its precious forests every year to such heinous acts. The lungs of Turkey are burning out little by little every summer. Sometimes the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party terrorist gang, sometimes some other urban terrorist gangs are blamed for the forest fires but it is almost certain that most Turkish fires are products of neglect, ignorance and selfish behavioral patterns of our picnickers. Naturally, carelessly discarding cigarette butts in a forest or leaving a forest area without extinguishing the picnic fire (though picnicking in forests is prohibited) are acts no less deplorable than terrorist acts. Terrorists are aiming innocent people to attain whatever their political aim is. People with sick minds, or some careless people throwing cigarette butts in a forested area or abandoning a picnic fire in a forest are indeed committing even a more serious crime that terrorists because they aim not only innocent civilians but also the global common natural treasure.

The immense disaster Australia suffered cannot be better explained than what Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who described the work of arsonists as "unspeakable murder on a mass scale." Over 100 detectives were reportedly deployed to catch the arsonists. Will this hunt for the arsonists succeed in grabbing at least some of these mass murderers and bringing them in front of justice? If captured, unfortunately a very low probability, they naturally deserve no mercy. They have committed a crime against humanity as well as a crime against the common global future. Their capture will not heal the wounds and will not bring back those lost loved ones, but their capture may at least offer some consolation to the grieving families and the enraged environmentalists.

Thanks David Tree
Australia’s forest fires were of course an immense trauma. The claim that most of the fires were products of some arsonists was shocking. How could man develop such a sick mind? But, there were as well some bright movements during the firefighting. One of such moments is now making headlines all around the world and people are sending each other that video clipping. The video shows firefighter David Tree and his crew. They were patrolling land already burnt out by Australia’s devastating wildfires looking for flare-ups when he spotted a koala moving gingerly across the blackened landscape. The koala, clearly in pain from scorched paws, stopped when it saw Tree following behind. "It was amazing, he turned around, sat on his bum and sort of looked at me with (a look) like, put me out of my misery," Tree said. "I yelled out for a bottle of water. I unscrewed the bottle, tipped it up on his lips and he just took it naturally. He kept reaching for the bottle, almost like a baby."

The photograph of the koala (apparently a she) reaching for the bottle of water offered by Tree has not only become the symbol of Australia’s fire but also a striking reminder of the need to maintain humane behavior even under such terrible conditions of fighting a forest fire.

Thank you Tree of reminding us humanely values at a time when men is at men’s throat in this worldÉ

Apparently the Middle East was not complicated enough and the Israeli electorate voted in Tuesday’s inconclusive polls to produce a Knesset, or Parliament, dominated by the conservative and nationalist hawks. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, on a short stopover in Istanbul on the way home from Paris, told his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gül that he was still hopeful that a truce between Israeli state and the Hamas militia ruling the Gaza Strip could be agreed as early as next week. In his efforts to strike a mutually agreed and hopefully long-term truce between Israel and Hamas, Mubarak has the support of the European Union, as well as the Arab world and the Mahmud Abbas administration in Ramallah. The Egyptian leader is apparently hoping that after a truce is agreed in Gaza and the international community extended a generous helping hand at a donors' conference for the reconstruction of Gaza, it could become easier to concentrate on Palestinian reconciliation in the first place and later on the resumption of the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.

At the donors' conference, Turkey will be represented by Foreign Minister Ali Babacan. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan must be either busy deciding what new items his government should distribute to woo the voters now as the Higher Electoral Board ordered a halt to household appliances "donations." Apparently, now the government is planning to start distributing milk to "needy citizens" and thus kill two birds with one stroke: Assist the needy on the one hand and help the battered milk industry on the other. Anyhow, this is fair election the AKP style!

To come back to the Mideast peacemaking, despite Mubarak’s optimism, Tuesday’s elections in Israel served a serious blow to prospects for peace anytime soon as not only the inconclusive elections will probably pull the Jewish country into a lengthy political uncertainty period, the arithmetic of the new Knesset demonstrate that the government to succeed Ehud Olmert-led outgoing coalition will most likely be headed by Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, though Tzipi Linvni’s Kadima came first in the poll and produced one seat more than 27 seats of Netanyahu’s Likud. Livni’s performance in the latest Gaza aggression of Israel leaves no room for hope that she could turn into a peace dove if she manages to garner a coalition government either. Of course Livni might try to forge a national unity government with Bibi’s Likud (indeed she reportedly already asked Bibi to consider joining a coalition led by herself) but the prospect of forging a coalition of "nationalist camp" under Bibi’s leadership, at least for now, appears killing formation of any such grand national unity coalition. Anyhow, the cumulative seats of Kadima and Likud in the 120-seat Knesset is six seats short of the required majority to form a two-way government. The "nationalist camp" on the other hand could produce Bibi a 65-seat majority in Knesset.

Two needed to for tango

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has already declared that "I'll talk with whatever government emerges in Israel" and that he did not believe consolidation of the "nationalist camp" in the Knesset would be an impediment to peace efforts, but it has to be taken into account that "two needed for tango" and Abbas cannot dance alone. The Israeli inconclusive elections and the sharp divide in Israeli politics are not offering a positive prospect for peace talks. Whatever government is forged and whoever is leading the new Israeli coalition government, the end result will not be a government moving quickly toward resuming peace talks with the Palestinians as both Livni and Bibi will have to accommodate expectations of some extremist or fundamentalist parties that are likely to acquire critical importance in talks to forge a new coalition. Thus, complications produced by the post-election paralysis in Israel could land the Jewish state at loggerheads with the new Barack Obama administration in Washington who made Mideast peace deal a priority on the one hand and damped prospects of a truce Egypt has been trying to broker between Israel and the Hamas. Obviously, Hamas will be reluctant to sign a truce deal with an outgoing Olmert government at the risk of having it overturned by an incoming government held hostage by some nationalist and extremist coalition partners.